there is a homeless guy hanging out in the empty cubicle next to my office. he's been there the past couple days talking to himself. if i didn’t know better, i would insist he was homeless. he looks homeless. he's definitely crazy, he talks to him self and he's dirty, but probably he's just a physicist.

ive been in another frenzy, hence the lack of posts. over the weekend, in the god-awful storm after storm sf bay has been enduring, we got quite a lot accomplished as far as christmas is concerned. knowing it would take hours to drive from livermore to san francisco friday evening, we decided to not fight it and, rather, stop off to pick out a christmas tree in the pouring rain. sounds horrible, but it was kind-of romantic. they had the huge rainbow umbrellas to use, and the trees are at Rowell's Ranch, home of the Rowell's Ranch Rodeo, where they certainly have enough tree's to find a the perfect short-fat variery (my favorite). so we walked along the isles of trees, picked out our favorite, hoited it into the back of the truck, and continued on for another 2 hours back home. Saturday we got ALL of our christmas shopping done. all except my brother's present, which after being inspired by making the listthe other day, and noting his influence, i am buying him a stack of my very most favorite cd's so that he finally removes that same bob marley disc from his player. our secret to christmas shopping is heading out to the ‘burbs. and finally, i found the perfect pair of brown leather boots that i have been searching for. they are kangaroo, and i love them. they are on the website, but i cant point to them. that is my one complaint about these new flashy flash websites - you cant copy a url to a specific product anymore. (its helpful when sending links to parents for gift ideas. here, mom, i want exactly this not in fluorescent green, not with neon stripes down the side...you get the idea)

im fucking lazy. like, for instance, i dont want to work. i pretty much dont want to do anything, i waste hours at a time on the internet. i make a TON of lists. right now, in the area surrounding my keyboard, there are the following lists: "things i want," "freaky searches from the site meter" (it gets weirder every day), "things im supposed to do," "cd's i want," "possible books." but, im an excellent worker! if i can muster up the strength to care. i work in the zone, i get things done really really fast, but the working only takes place in mad frenzies of utter consumption frantic list-making, and then nothing. today i compared exfoliation methods. yesterday i finally was given "something to do" besides "here, read this fucking textbook while i go to cancun for a week," and i went bezerk for about three hours, but today? nothing.

on inspiration from missy, i have compiled my own top twenty songs of all time, meaning the top twenty most influential to my music development. (so not necessarily my most favorite, though some make that list too) i tried to stick with just one song, though i tend to be more of an entire album girl, so it was hard. if it was the entire album that influenced me, i just picked my favorite from it.

from the beginning:

1) forever in blue jeans -neil diamond: one of my earliest music memories was dancing around the house and singing to neil diamond records with my step-mother. i love neil diamond to this day. the man's got it going on, I saw him live last year and he brought tears to my eyes.

2) stairway to heaven -Led zeppelin: driving in the car with my mom and brother, in one of the rare occations when i won shot-gun, this song came on the radio and my brother informed me (in all seriousness) of the documented fact that this song has been proven to be the greatest song in of all time past, present, and future. and shit, that was good enough for me. many music influences came from my brother, older by five years.

3) It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine) -rem: i could (and writing this, i think i still can) recite every lyric. this was another passed down from my older brother, and another tape i had to buy again. most importantly, this song began my love affair with the southern rock

4) red hill mining town -u2: i was miss u2 in junior high. everyone else loved poison and def leopard, but not me. i was all all about u2 and rem. i could draw bono and the edge. i looooved larry mullen jr.

5) Friend of the Devil -grateful dead: i got a cd player for christmas, and five cd's with it. this album, with this song being my favorite, marked my slip into the abyss of hippy-rock, which, unfortunately, lasted most of high-school. and, incidentally was not a period in my life when i was very happy.

6) shelter from the storm -bob dylan: when i started to love bob dylan, like rub the desk love him, i began to realize what it meant to appreciate music, even though it was his lyrics and not the actual tune. i began also to disregard bands who failed to take advantage of the lyrical opportunities in songs. i thus got rid of all phish.

7) rhinoceros -smashing pumpkins: this album marked the true beginning of my ressurection from the hippy abyss.

8) i bleed -pixies: i remember sitting on an airplane heading home for thanksgiving my freshman year of college listening to this tape over and over and over again. i carted the tape around with me for the entire break, poped it in wherever there was a tapedeck. it marked the beginning of my indie rock era.

9) voodoo lady -ween: god, what a great album. i heard this song right around the time i started getting involved with my college radio station.

10) cuyahoga -rem: rem again. they were on the forefront of college rock, and set the precedent for what i would look for in that type of band

11) camarillo brillo -frank zappa: : frank zappa taught me how much i still had to learn about music.

12) electric relaxation -tribe called quest: this was the first time i thought hip-hop/rap could be great. while I had listened to digable planets and de la soul, etc and liked them, i was never moved. until this. they opened up this world to me, and while it never expanded too far beyond them, these guys produce amazing music

13) Randy Described Eternity -built to spill: ahhh built to spill. pick any song really

14) I'm Waiting for the Day -beach boys: when it became less about indie -poppy -catchy and more about musical brilliance and musical composition.

ok. 14. ill keep thinking, but this much has taken me all morning...

I’ve been getting excited about Christmas this year, probably since it means a series of long breaks from my job, but, regardless, I have been in the spirit. Then comes Saturday, when I endured teams of micky mouse sweatshirt wearing, fao Schwartz bag toting, fat lady’s waddling through union square screaming at their children until I finally had the sense to give up on the brown leather boots ive been searching for and just go home. I don’t hate Christmas yet, but I remembered why I’m not usually excited about it.

the creepy man-child janitor is being relocated! he made the extra special effort to spit this out to me this morning. "um. um. im leaving" he told me it's been nice working for me. im definitely going to hell. he's not retarded or visibly "different" in any way. but there is definitely something wrong with him. maybe his mother smoked too much crack while she was pregnant with him. god damn. im going to hell.

speaking of creepy men at work...i haven’t heard from my stalker in awhile. actually....now that i think about it, he last came by before thanksgiving. he asked where i was going, "idaho falls" hmmmm, why are you going there "oh, my boyfriend's parents." i hadn’t ever mentioned dave to him, and i wasn’t planning to/planning to not, it just never came up. until then. and off he goes.

its been so long since ive been single, i forget what its like. the last time i actively played the market was….nearly seven years ago….scary. there were breaks in the beginning when i was still technically shopping around. or, technically, juggling. in that seven years there have been two serious ones, and two or three “experiments.” short lived experiments. the two serious are polar opposites of one another. the experiments…well, one was technically never resolved. (i’ve always got something on the back burner, isn’t that terrible?) another was most certainly resolved, by me. in letter form. one was an experiment in its purest sense. entirely secret. certainly failed. its been a good seven years. unfortunately, there was not much interlude between the two serious, and I sometimes regret not playing the field at that time. back then i thought (and i still think) id be risking too much, since i already knew what i wanted. in other words, i knew i who i wanted, and i believed we were on the right track to get there. if i threw in any curve balls it would screw everything up.

It’s really not healthy to repeatedly eat past the point of being full, teevee, sleep, eat, sleep, nap, eat, teevee….in the past four days not one meal (besides breakfast, i did use restraint at breakfast) passed without pie for dessert. You’re just not supposed to eat that much pie. I can’t even look at another pecan pie. I did achieve something in all of this, however. I finally found what the deal is with the Soprano’s. Ive never seen it before, and this weekend might have been entitled too much food with too much of a side of soprano’s dvd’s. that’s not true. I actually really liked the soprano’s part. And the too much food part. I think we watched the entire third season. It was quite racy at parts. We didn’t do much else, there is nothing to do in Idaho Falls. But it was relaxing, and I had a great time. The key is a good book, this one, I recommend. Ive been lucky lately in a streak of good books.